


sang a lullaby to a butterfly

by kimaracretak



Series: burning planet, humming static [3]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Fluff, Holding Hands, Hurt/Comfort, Senator Ben Organa, Sith Artifacts, ben is a Dumb Nerd, rey learned a lot of field medicine on jakku
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-21
Updated: 2018-03-21
Packaged: 2019-04-06 06:17:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 878
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14050770
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kimaracretak/pseuds/kimaracretak
Summary: Ben gets into a fight with a holocron. Rey adjusts to caring about small things, and also the ready availability of bacta patches.





	sang a lullaby to a butterfly

**Author's Note:**

  * For [punkeraa](https://archiveofourown.org/users/punkeraa/gifts).



> HAPPY BIRTHDAY ARI here is a smol bit of fluff from the senator ben 'verse <3
> 
> title from little dragon, 'butterflies'

Somewhere in the past months, Rey's gotten used to falling asleep to the soft murmurs of Ben talking to himself. When she thinks about it, she thinks it was probably sometime after Dromund Kaas, a remnant of the jungle's cloying heat — and its visions.

She doesn't like to think about that too much. She'd spent decades wishing she could belong with someone, but the knowledge that she _does_ , that she's right where she should be, with the person she should be with — it curls around her heart more frightening than a sandstorm.

Instead, Rey chews her fingernails and stares blankly at the bulkhead, imagines the stars of hyperspace streaking past outside, and tries to let the more-or-less optimistic tone of Ben's voice from the floor beside her bunk lull her to sleep.

It's working — or, at least, it _is_ working, until something makes a _shriek_ that has her bolting upright, hands clasped over her ears as if they could do anything for the ringing in her bones.

Rey can hardly hear herself as she asks, "Ben?" leaning over the side of her bunk in concern.

Ben is still seated cross-legged in front of one of the strangely patterned green cubes they've collected over the past three months, staring in mild offence at a gash in his hand, seemingly uncaring of how it was dripping blood into his lap. "I didn't know it could do that," he says thoughtfully.

"What _was_ — Ben, are you alright?" She's already picking at her arm wrap, trying to guess the right size of fabric she'll need to bind his hand, but he doesn't seem to hear her.

"I didn't think it would _sound_  like that if it did." He blinks, shakes his head, and in the silence where Rey tries to come up with a way to make him pay attention to the fact that he's bleeding all over his robes and the floor, he says, very softly, " _ow._ "

"Yes, _ow_ ," Rey sighs as she slides off the bed to sit next to him, offering him a torn scrap of cloth. "Here, clean that up. What happened?"

Ben blinks again, looking from the cloth to her face. "It's nothing, the holocron didn't open right. Rey ... you know we have bacta patches in the 'fresher, right?"

"Oh." She drops the fabric in his lap, leans back against the bunk and doesn't meet his eyes. "I, um. Forgot."

Bacta had been a luxury on Jakku, and Rey bites her lip as she watches Ben wipe his hand on his robes. Free of the blood, she can tell the cut probably isn't as bad as it looked. Worthy of some of her scant water rations, perhaps, but not nearly bad enough to think about bacta. Probably not even bad enough to call an early end to a day's scavenging.

She can feel the heat of Ben's gaze on her neck, see his hand half-hovering above her knee. "Rey? I'm sorry, I didn't mean — I mean, thank you, but —"

He starts to get up, and Rey grabs his sleeve impulsively. "No that's not ... I mean, shouldn't we save it? If we can't get back to Chandrila, or ..." She's not sure, really, what she's afraid of anymore, but she knows that space is a crueler desert than any she walked as a child.

Ben sits back down, and Rey doesn't think about why her fingers are still tangled in his robes. "Well," he says, and then nothing else for so long that Rey wonders why he doesn't just go back to standing up and fetching his precious bacta patch. "I suppose you're right," he says, and there's no reason why that should fill Rey with so much warmth.

He holds out his hand, the injured one palm-down so she can see the cut, the other holding the torn bit of her arm wrap. "Would you ... I've never done this before."

Rey blushes. "'Course," she says, roughly, ducking her head to her work and grateful for the excuse to continue to not meet his eyes. It's the matter of moments to rinse and bind his hand, and she winces only a little at the way the water splashes across them both, soaking almost uncomfortably cool into her sleep leggings. For his part, Ben seems content to watch, a faint, unreadable smile on his lips whenever she glances up through her eyelashes.

"There," she says when it's done, smoothing the makeshift bandage one last time. She could take her hand back. She _should_  take her hand back, except Ben isn't pulling away. Is, in fact, covering her hand with both of his, cradling it between his own.

"Thank you," he says softly, and Rey's sure embarrassment is burning her cheeks hotter than any sun ever could.

"Yeah, well. Next time don't lose the fight with the Sith artifact?" She's not sure if it's a joke at all, but he laughs anyway, and the sound gives her the push to say, "We'll figure this out, won't we? Whatever the First Order's looking for, whatever we're hunting ... we're going to figure it out."

When she looks up, his smile has lit up his whole face with joy. "Yeah," he says. "We really will."

For that night, it's all either of them need.


End file.
